On December 8, Lenovo officially released the ThinkPad X1 Nano at the ThinkPad Black FUN event. This is the lightest product in the ThinkPad series, weighing only 907g, focusing on lightweight and portability.To be honest, my first impression was that I did not have high expectations for its performance.
However, during the subsequent week-long experience, I found it capable of meeting the vast majority of my usage needs, including daily office work, leisure entertainment, and creative production, etc.How is the performance of the latest Intel 11th Gen Core processor? Who is the ThinkPad X1 Nano suitable for? How does it perform in daily use and large tasks with the support of the 11th Gen Core processor?Let’s discuss it in detail below~
In terms of appearance, the ThinkPad X1 Nano, equipped with the 11th Gen Intel Core processor, is a lightweight laptop with a restrained overall style, entirely black, in line with the positioning of portable office.
The chassis is made of aerospace-grade carbon fiber, which feels very skin-friendly but is prone to fingerprints. The A-side is very low-key, with the Lenovo logo and ThinkPad emblem located at the two corners. The “breathing” little red dot is the finishing touch, adding some spiritual essence to the whole machine.
The B-side features a 13-inch 16:10 2K screen, which is longer vertically compared to traditional 16:9. It has a larger display area, making document viewing more comfortable. The screen brightness can reach up to 450 nits, making it visible even outdoors. A camera (with a physical switch) is embedded above the screen. Thanks to the latest 11th Gen Core processor, the facial recognition unlock speed is very fast.
The C-side keyboard is full-sized and backlit, adopting an X-shaped support structure, with large keycaps and comfortable key travel. The sinking space when pressed is sufficient, which does not affect my typing speed at all.
The central little red dot is a Lenovo characteristic, equivalent to a movable pointer.
However, I prefer using the traditional touchpad, which is also quite large.
The D-side is the air intake, and the X1 Nano adopts an eagle-wing style fan design. Unless you put your ear close to the laptop, you can hardly hear any sound during normal use, and there is no noticeable noise.
Overall, I have a good first impression of this laptop, the screen display effect and typing experience are quite excellent. What impressed me the most is its light weight, while lightweight laptops often give me (and many others) a traditional impression of insufficient performance. However, this time, it changed my usual view.
Let’s take a look at the specifications of the ThinkPad X1 Nano↓
Weighing only 907g, extremely portable, with a thickness of only 13.87mm
11th Gen Core i5/i7 processors (i5-1130G7/i7-1160G7)
All models come with 16GB (LPDDR4X-4266) +512GB as standard
Dual Thunderbolt 4 ports
48Wh battery + facial recognition + fingerprint recognition
The 11th Gen Intel Core processor has improved performance by about 24% compared to the previous generation, with graphics performance increased by about 87% and AI performance acceleration increased by about 5 times.Some may not be familiar with AI performance; for example, it can enhance audio, achieve background noise suppression, optimize video resolution, and provide a better video conferencing experience. AI acceleration will also be used in daily applications like Photoshop. It will also involve recognizing complex scenes for high-performance continuous output and ensuring reasonable scheduling for battery life in simple scenes. Overall, it is smarter, which is also a future trend.
Additionally, this time the 11th Gen Core supports Wi-Fi 6, with speed increased by about 3 times. The Thunderbolt 4 ports can connect to dual 4K displays for expanded views, with stronger compatibility and expandability, making data transfer more convenient.
Not much to say about the benchmark scores, just look at the images↓
↑ Geekbench 5 benchmark score
↑ CPU-Z theoretical performance is close to that of the i7-7700K
↑ Single-core performance is outstanding
Thanks to the powerful single-core performance, I can summarize the daily experience in four words—responsive.The laptop can wake up within a second from sleep mode.Common applications like QQ, Word, Baidu Cloud, Thunder, and the browser can all open instantly, and opening dozens of web pages while running multiple applications in the background can be done without feeling lag. The response speed is sometimes even faster than my desktop, as its single-core performance can compete with many excellent desktop processors.Therefore, there is no pressure in daily use and light office productivity.
So how does it perform in more resource-intensive design editing tasks? 🤔
In practical tests, opening a 2GB file of “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” in Photoshop, using tools for retouching, color correction, and compositing, the operation was smooth, and I did not encounter any lag.
Importing 4K material into Premiere Pro is recognized quickly.Dragging the progress bar to play the material is also instant response, and editing can be done smoothly. For a lightweight laptop weighing only 907g without a discrete GPU, this performance is satisfactory to me.
If you get tired from work, you can also play some games.
League of Legends performs smoothly at ultra-high graphics and 2160×1350 resolution.
It can even play AAA titles, of course, with the condition that the graphics quality needs to be lowered. For a lightweight laptop, I have no high expectations, and I am somewhat surprised at the significant performance increase of this generation of processors.
More importantly, the outstanding single-core performance, while most application scenarios for laptops rely more on single-core performance. Therefore, it is more suitable as a mobile platform.
Overall, this has significantly improved my work efficiency, such as image processing, video creation, and viewing presentations, while also accommodating entertainment.
It can be said that the ThinkPad X1 Nano, as a high-performance laptop with superior display and connectivity that meets future mainstream standards, is currently a relatively ideal choice for hybrid mobile office scenarios. We have seen many thin laptops, but one that weighs only 907g is truly a first for me, and perhaps I have not experienced many laptops. ~Moreover, the laptop has over 9 hours of multitasking battery life, making it a worthwhile consideration for users particularly sensitive to portability.Certified by the Intel Evo platform, I believe its positioning is very clear, suitable for frequent business travelers and middle-class consumers who have certain requirements for both lightweight and performance.
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